


Bureaus and Brokers

by BellisPerennis



Category: Daughter of the Lilies (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 03:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BellisPerennis/pseuds/BellisPerennis
Summary: Thistle, Orrig, Brent and Lyra forge an unlikely allience in the Real World.





	1. The one set in a bar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lyra needs a drink.

“Oh hell, ████ no! This was not only a complete waste of time, but so nerve-grating, that I probably lost a whole ███████ year of my lifetime. I’d rather tear my own eyes out than do this again!” were the words Lyra would have loved to say, but instead she responded weakly: “Yeah, it was a nice evening, we should repeat it sometime.” She forced the corners of her mouth upwards and hoped that her colleagues wouldn’t take enough notice to realize that the smile was 150% fake.

They didn’t. “Why stop now? There is a very nice bar around the corner, that serves a badass martini!”, Frank replied, genuinely excited.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t drink”, Lyra declined defensively: “For medical reasons. I have an appointment to donate blood tomorrow.” In her mind she complimented herself for this excellent alibi.

“Oh bugger!”, Frank replied, but the small group left to continue their little tour.

Lyra watched them a while, and started audibly grumbling when they were away enough not to hear it. “████, of course they want to hang out at my favorite bar. Of course, when I need a drink the most…”

She took her smartphone out of her bag and started searching for another fitting establishment. It sucked that there were only a few semi decent drinking locations around in the city and now she would have to make a huge detour to the next one, instead of just making a short trip to her usual place and then walking to her flat a few houses further.

A few swipes later she called a cab and was her way to the next location. Her mood sank further, because of the obnoxious tune that sounded off from the car’s radio. And the smell in there reminded her of the wrong end of heavy drinking nights.

Finally they arrived at the bar and she quickly paid off the cab driver with a few currency units and determinedly strode forwards to the entrance.

 

It has been a very slow night so far for Brent. Today there were almost no patrons at the bar, so he had taken up a seat inside next to the entrance instead of standing outside. There was no point in staying in the cold if he was the only one to do it. Without prior notice a woman entered and strategically strode towards the bar.

“Hey!”, Brent called after her: “You can’t just enter!”

The woman ignored him and simply placed an order with the barkeep.

Brent sighed and stood up and walked over. He tried to sent of an imposing and respectable aura, but in the end he felt mostly annoyed.

“Excuse me, miss”, he started, but she only took a quick glance at him and waved dismissively: “It’s alright, you may leave now.”

“Wait, what?” Brent was startled.

“Go away”, she added and grabbed for the glass that the barkeep put in front of her.

“Not so fast!”, Brent interjected and demonstratively snatched her beverage away.

“Hey!”, she interjected: “That’s mine! Get your own drink, ███████!”

“I don’t drink while I work”, Brent stated: “And you won’t drink until I’ve taken a look at your ID.”

She stared at him and rolled with her eyes: “Do I look like I’m not of drinking age yet?”

He snorted: “You might look like an octogenarian and I still would check your ID.”

She starred at him for three solid seconds, during which he did his best to not flinch, and suddenly broke out into laughter: “That’s priceless! What are you, the bouncer?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I am!”

“Okay, kiddo, here!” She took her ID out and flipped it over to him, still chuckling.

Brent checked it thoroughly and gave it back. “Okay, looks like you’re fine. Have fun drinking, but don’t overdo it!” He added the last part because he felt kinda awkward.

“No worries”, she said and emptied her glass in one swift swoop: “I’m a responsible drunk.”

“Whatever”, Brent replied and returned to his station at the entrance.

 

While she ordered another few drinks Lyra realized that she didn’t feel that shitty anymore which was really strange, because normally she needed at least four more glasses to reach that point. Perhaps it was the simple fact that this guy had not oogled her like most – who was she kidding, all guys around did. That was a kinda refreshing, although she was sure that he’d manage in a heartbeat to destroy what little positive opinion she had of him. Most ALL people managed.

Kinda depressed again she continued to raise her spirits by trying to drown her sorrows in them.

 

As someone used to drinking she quickly reached that special happy state of mind, where things didn’t bother her anymore and she just felt intensely bored. So she looked around and watched the other patrons.

There were a couple of sleazy businessmen that tried to get drunk on some quality whiskey (she would have recognized that bottle even blindfolded). Then there were a few more construction-workerish looking guys, that hurdled around a tablet computer, where one of them seemed to stream one of these sports games. The faint sound let her guess that it was probably soccer or football or whatever. She had absolutely no idea, because regular sports were all the same anyway; they lacked the finesse of real martial arts. Seriously, it was right there: martial arts. That was a form of physical exercise she could get into.

A third group consisted of a few dolled up gals, who obviously enjoyed their time together, happily chatting and laughing a lot.

Lyra let her gaze linger longer on them, she always tried to use opportunities for getting some inspirations how to put her own outfits together. That was the only reason, no doubt whatsoever.

The nice view degraded, as a few more guys entered the bar and the biggest douche of them started to harass them in the most stupid way imaginable:

“Hello ladies, how are we doing tonight?”

“None of your business!”, one gal with snazzy blond hair replied, inducing laughter in the others.

“Hey, no offense. I just tried to be nice here.”

“Maybe, but we are having our little ladies night here, so could you just let us be?”, a black-haired one asked.

The guy started grinning pleased like Punch: “But don’t you know that one man is needed to make a ladies night really pleasurable?” When he started to actually touch one of them, Lyra knew that this had gone more then far enough.

A quick glance in the entrance’s direction – of course empty, because why should the bouncer be bouncing, when there is an actual need for the bouncer to bounce – and Lyra headed off to the damsels in distress. “Hey, they said they want to be left alone!”, she hissed angrily at them.

“████ off, █████!”, on of the other guys replied, but the leader just scratched his chin: “You’re not looking bad, not at all. Perhaps you could join us? Well make sure that it will be an unforgettable night!”

“Cut that ████████, the ladies asked that you leave them alone, so you will respect that wish and back off.”

“And if I don’t do that?” He stroked contemplatively his chin.

“Then you will regret it.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Maybe…” Lyra demonstratively let her knuckles crack.

The guy waved aside: “Oh come on, really? As if I could take an office █████ like you serious. Did you ever look at yourself in a mirror? Would someone like you risk to break of one of her pretty manicured nails? Or worse, what if some of your makeup smudges?”

Lyra didn’t even bat an eye: “That’s all you got? All hat and no cattle?”

“Still more then you’ll ever have. Be a nice woman and sit down again. Perhaps you could then actually start to enjoy some attention.” He grabbed Lyras breast.

It took only a moment, but Lyra grabbed his arm and throw him with a special move down onto the ground. Then she put one of her feet on his chest and asked: “Finally willing to listen now, ███████?”

 

Brent was carefully balancing the three heavy crates with assorted liquors and tried to find a walking speed that was fast and stable enough at the same time. Running errands annoyed him; he had to make sure that there was nothing fishy going on, but explain that to the barkeep.

He was always back at the door and briefly put down the crates to open it, strategically placing one of his feet to keep it open. He bend down to carefully pick up the crates without loosing foot-grip on the door.

In the moment, the crates were firmly in position, a man suddenly flew through the door, landing on the concrete sidewalk. Brent glanced inside the bar, were he saw the office lady from before, breathing heavily, a look of furious anger on her face mixed with a hint of surprise, and a big stain on her outfit. Its color suggested it was an appletini.

She bristled with anger, went directly after him and said: “I hope this was a lecture how it ends if you can’t behave like a decent ███████ human being!”

The woman made a glance sideways: “Have a problem?”

Brent who just had watched, unable to do something without putting his precious cargo down first, just shake his head: “Nope. I’m sure you had a perfectly valid reason to throw all the way through the bar onto the street.”

“████ right!”, she responded, reminding him for a little moment of a cockatoo puffing its feathers.

 

In the distance the sirens of a police car could be heard approaching, quickly coming nearer. The matching car arrived half a minute later, and the officers quickly assessed the situation.

“That was about time!”, Lyra declared satisfied, when they cuffed up the sleazebag, but she was caught by surprise, when they continued with her. “Hey, what is that supposed to mean?!”

“You have the right to remain silent, everything you say can and will be used against you. Etc. pp.”

She was not so dumb to resist the police, but she was clearly not happy either.

Brent watched as the car left the scene with both of them, and shock his head: “That could have definitely gone better.”

~~~

Ford glanced over his partition screen and smiled, mildly mischievous. “I think this is the perfect opportunity to switch the game to the other group, don’t you think so?”

“Oh come on, I was having a run here, you can’t seriously leave my character hanging in limbo like this!”, Lyra said and crossed her arms.

“Hey, I’m the gamemaster, remember rule number zero.”

“Pff, fine, whatever…"She grabbed her glass and downed its content, although it was just plain, ordinary water.

Thistle looked up from the book that she had read and panickly started to shuffle around the myriad of sourcebooks surrounding her: "But I’m not ready with my character yet!”

“Don’t worry”, Ford replied: “As long as you have the basics down, we can start. We won’t get into the finer mechanics of the game until later. Also I think it would be nicer to begin the scene with Mr. Orrig.”

He nodded in the direction of the orc, who put down his character sheet. “Ve can start venever you vant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I were not completely satisfied how this first chapter turned out, I had a feeling that RW!Lyra was too flanderized - but in hindsight as this is not the real Lyra but a Lyra Lyra plays, I think it's acceptable.  
> I hope you could enjoy this chapter, I'll be posting number 2 in the upcoming days!
> 
> Constructive critic is more than welcome, English is not my mother tongue.


	2. The one were (almost) everyone wonders what Thistle is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serious business with Thistle and Orrig.

"Okay, we are now in Orrig's repair-shop", Ford began and lay down a plan: "It has currently two cars inside, one basic taxi and a hybrid." He put two little cars onto the map.

"Wow, you have even figurines?", Brent said and stood up to threw a closer look at them: "As kid I always dreamed of getting my own!"

"First edition", Ford supplemented with a satisfied smile: "I have even more. Have a look!"

He carefully lifted a box over the partition screen and let Brent grab it. The quarter-orc's eyes almost glittered as he looked at the little treasure horde, and he carefully picked one out. "Is that a real garbage truck?!"

"Of course it is. Which self respecting game master would not have one in his collection? It's the most iconic vehicle BnB ever had."

"Hey, let me take a look, too", Lyra demanded and hold out her hand.

"Nope, I am looking at it now. You'll have to wait till I'm done."

"Urgh. Fine, be a dork."

Orrig stood up.

Lyra immediately looked at him, a microscopic bit of guiltiness in her eyes.

"Looks like vis vill take more time, so I might as vell get some more vor drinking."

"Oh sorry, wait!", Ford interrupted: "We were going a tiny bit off the leylines here, but well get right on back, I'm sure everyone will be giving us enough silence so we can start this scene properly." He made a quick glance in the round to which Lyra and Brent nodded.

A few moments later, Thistle looked up from the rulebook and then around, a tiny bit confused: "Did I... did I miss something?"

"No", Orrig said and sat down again.

"Okay, very good", Ford said and gestured back at the map. "Like I said, there are two cars inside; this area here is were you keep the tools, that little room is the place were you do financial stuff and that little room there is the lavatory. Are there any details you want to know more about?"

"No, I'm vine. It's not my virst time as vis class."

"Very well, then let's quickly establish the scene for Thistle."

The hooded mage looked up again, a trace of panic in her voice: "I'm not ready yet, can I have five more minutes? I want to do this _right_."

"Well, you told me your basic character concept, and I'm fine with you leaving out a few details until we are a bit deeper into the plot; your class is notoriously circumstantial after all."

As low-key as a rusty robot, Brent tried to sneak a peek at her character sheet. Thistle snatched it away from him, then protectively pressed it against herself, as she registered Lyra trying the same thing from the other side. "Don't look!", she yelped desperately and added: "I'm not done yet, and we were told to keep our classes secret..."

"Exactly!", Ford pointed out and put a little piece of paper with a crude drawing on the table, outside of the map of the repair shop.

More than one brow furrowed questioning, as the players tried to decipher the meaning of this interesting drawing. "You have a flower cart", Ford explained: "And this is the place where you sell your wares."

"Oh, that's soo nice", Thistle whispered, feeling immediately at home with this for her character.

The game master smiled and pointed decidedly at her and at Orrig: "Okay, you both know where you are, so let's begin!"

 

~~~

 

The burly mechanic with the majestic sideburns leaned forward over the open hood of the car. He gripped a tool and cautiously started screwing off the screws that kept the defective part in place. With the experience of many years he removed the offending piece of technology from the motor block and started replacing it with a new one immediately after.

Content he grabbed a piece of cloth and cleaned his hands off oil and the other usual dirt.

 

Thistle blinked into the bright morning sun and then grabbed her trusty folding chair, which she kept at the front end of her flower cart. It did not look as if there were any people around that seemed interested in buying flowers, so this made this opportunity as good as any other to indulge in a little bit reading. With one swift motion, she unfolded her chair and placed it directly next to her cart, so that the huge umbrella cast its shade over her. Then she sat down and drew the folded up newspaper out of her coat's pocket. Her tablet would had of course also been an option, but she always had preferred the haptic feel and smell of the real thing.

 

Orrig threw a quick glance out of the window. There was the flower cart again. He sligthly shrugged with his shoulders, because that was just as usual. Around half a year ago the cart had appeared for the first time, and since then the women had come here, day after day, always at around the same time. Her cart offered an impressive assortment of flowers and always had as far as he could remember. Just a few months ago, snow had the city firmly in its cold grip, but that didn't have any effect on her variety, not even one bit.

Of course he couldn't be completely sure, because he always had seen the cart only from his repair-shop as there never had been any reason to talk directly with her. Her clothing (which hadn't changed in its coverage one bit, exactly like her flowers) could leave the impression that she was a bag lady, but in the end she was exactly the type of street vendor Orrig preferred in front of his repair-shop; the sort that didn't cause trouble. She didn't harass his customers and she never seemed to loose her patience, even the few times he had noticed her dealing with troublesome buyers.

Shuddering he thought back to the hot-dog wagon that was stationed at this place before her.

 

"Excuse me", a voice interrupted Thistle's reading session. She looked up from a very interesting article about natural inspired algorithms and smiled.

"How much are the tulips?", the customer asked, gesticulating to the flowers of her his choice, spilling a bit of his coffee in the process, without taking notice of it, before taking a bite out of his late breakfast, a fresh cinnamon roll.

"50 Minor Money Units for one", Thistle answered and stood up.

The man visibly counted together in his head and then answered: "Then I'll take 10. That makes 5 Basic Money Units, doesn't it?"

"Yes, exactly." She bundled the flowers, wrapped a protective sheet of paper around them and hold out the bouquet to him.

"One moment, please!", the customer answered, making complicated looking motions while trying to coordinate holding his breakfast at the same time as getting money out of his wallet. He utterly failed, spilling a good amount of his thankfully only moderately temperate coffee onto Thistle.

"Oh sorry, sorry, sorry!", he squeaked, turning redder than the finest rose on the car.

Thistle just shook her head: "No, it's no problem, little accidents can happen to anyone. She grabbed a few paper tissues from her pocket and quickly rubbed over the stain to get the majority of liquid off. "My clothing is robust, and while working with flowers things tend to get dirty." After a short search she retrieved her water bottle which she had placed between the flower buckets and which was a standard part of the inventory, which one could easily look up in the ~~rule-book~~ official city guidelines for street vendors. She sprayed a bit of water onto a clean tissue and therefore upped its coffee stain cleaning ability, finishing the job in half a minute.

"Okay...", the customer said after the awkward pause: "Again, sorry for that mishap, here your money, keep the change!" He pressed into her hands an assortment of coins and then quickly left, while Thistle just stared after him.

Finally she opened the zipper of the little moneybag she wore around her waist and sorted the coins into the right pockets, her brows slightly raising while she counted them. The change was exactly three Minor Money Units.

Sighting she sat down on her chair again and took up the paper again, simply letting the wind dry the remains of the coffee stain.

 

With a yank Orrig finally managed to loose the rusted car part and put it carefully down on the ground, inspecting the place where it had been fixed to. The underground looked fine, just minor deposits of rust. He grabbed his sanding equipment and removed the superficial fraction, before carefully applying an anti corrosion varnish with a fine brush.

With an experienced look he inspected the rusty part and decided that it had been too structurally damaged to be worth saving. So he strut over to the scanner, put it into the machine and got out the little notepad where he had written down the right operating sequence. Highly concentrated he typed in the right combination of instructions and with a whirring noise the machine started working. A short time later the 3-D printer next to it started printing out the replacement made from special augmented car plastic. While it worked, he started to get together a bunch of tools he would need to finish it afterwards; it was not like the machine would not be able to print it perfectly, but the control sequence was notoriously complicated and Orrig was fine with putting in a bit more of manual effort when that meant only spending a fraction of time hassling with computer stuff.

While he waited he threw a glance out of the window and noticed the flower vendor again, who was reading a paper.

That was actually quite a nice idea to bridge the waiting, so the man walked over to his little corner where he kept his non-work stuff and retrieved the magazine about car trends he had stuck under his lunchbox. At the sight he thought of his wife and a gentle smile showed on his face. Dotra was a simply wonderful woman, tough and smart and tenacious and strong - and that clearly made him the luckiest husband on earth. In around a week they would have their wedding anniversary and he still had not found a good present that was worthy enough of her.

Suddenly he had an idea, almost like an indisputable outside force had gifted it to him, and he started smiling happily. The mother of all flower bouquets, with one different flower for each year they had been together, that was perfect! This was original and traditional at the same time. Dotra would love it.

But of course a week was to soon to get those flowers, because he did not want them to wilt prematurely; and it wasn't like he didn't have access to a fitting vendor already. Content that he finished the most difficult part, namely getting a good idea, Orrig sat down and started reading his magazine.

 

~~~

 

"Oh! My! ███!", Lyra suddenly blurted out: "I can't believe this! There were perfect opportunities to finally do something in this boring scene and no on grabs it! This is the most boring BnB session I've ever witnessed! And I've played with _elves_ before" Frustrated she buried her face in her hands, but then looked up: "Come on, guys, we are in an exotic, unknown world, full of exiting, miraculous things! You can't really want to waste our time with doing nothing! We need to get this story going!"

"She is kinda right", Brent agreed after a short pause, in the most neutral tone he could manage, so that no one hopefully got any funny ideas.

"But... but...", Thistle tried to answer intimidated, searching for the right thing to say in this situation.

Orrig on the other hand stayed perfectly calm and replied: "Ve are just staying in character. It vould not make sense for my human to run out for buying flowers on a vim. Ve all agreed to stay close to ourselves for vis."

"But what's the point in playing BnB if you don't try to try out new behaviors from time to time?!", Lyra complained.

"Wait, that scene before was not 100% authentic Lyra?", Brent asked, earning an angry glare from her.

"Guys, guys, keep calm!", Ford interjected making a soothing hand gesture: "I've got everything completely under control."

 

~~~

 

Thunder rumbled over the city. Surprised Thistle looked out from under her umbrella to the sky above which had managed to cloud over in record time, although there had been perfectly fine weather just a short while ago. A hailstone crashed into the boardwalk, just a few steps away, as big as a grape. More followed, making clear that this had not been a freaky accident.

 

~~~

 

"My flowers..." Thistle whimpered, imagining a little bit to vividly her cart and what the hailstorm did to it.

Ford fought the impulse to change the weather again – even if he currently felt as if he had kicked a puppy – and continued.

 

~~~

 

Desperately the vendor tried to cover up her flowers to save them from the worst if the storm, but she knew that this was a pointless endeavor. Panicking she looked around for a place that offered even a tiny bit protection.

The gate of the repair shop across the street opened with a loud whirring noise, and she could see the owner of it standing there, one hand on the old fashioned electrical switch, gesturing at her and pointing at the inside.

Thistle felt like a huge stone had been taken off her shoulders and hurriedly stemmed against her cart, pushing it into the right direction. Moments later, she felt the resistance significantly lighten, as the man had run over to her and joined into the effort. Together they swiftly managed to get the flower cart into the safety of the inside.

 

Needing a moment to pull herself together from being on the verge to crying, Thistle turned around to Orrig and extended one of her gloved hands. "Thank you so much, I have no idea what I would have done otherwise."

"You're velcome", Orrig replied, grabbing her hand without hesitation, completing the handshake. A moment later he realized, that there had to have been traces of oil on his hand. "Oh, sorry, vorgot."

Surprised Thistle looked at her glove that now was smeared with black oil.

"Oh", she replied: "It's no problem, I can wash that off easily."

"Ve room vat is ve larvatory is over vere." He pointed in the direction of the toilet facilities.

 

After Thistle returned, they shared a bit of small talk about the most trivial things, but it was a pleasant conversation, so it was no wonder that they continued to do so semi frequently after that day.

 

~~~

 

"Okay, that was enough to establish from were Thistle's and Orrig's character know each other, we can now return to Lyra's."

"Finally!", the elven woman exhaled, putting both her arms into the air, which was a little bit offset by the fact that she let her face rest one the table where she had put it half an hour ago, as visual cue that she felt immensely bored.

She then sat up straight and looked directly at Ford: "You can do your worst, I can deal with anything!"

Ford smiled broadly: "It will be my pleasure! After I got 10 minutes to prepare myself."

"What, really?!" Her face returned to its table position.

"And you call me childish...", Brent noted, only earning a not very ladylike gesture from Lyra.

 

Orrig stood up and used the opportunity to stretch a bit. He liked this game, really much. There were few things that felt as authentically orcish like playing Bureaus and Brokers for him, as this game combined to many things he saw as a core aspect of his kind. Bravery, teamwork and tactic; all of these building blocks of a fine orc.

He went around the table, to get to the door.

BnB was also a great team-building exercise, which he knew from a multitude of games he made with his family, since he were a little, not much bigger than a bear's cub. It tended to give insights into others, sometimes even things that were hidden under a multitude of personality layers.

Currently standing behind Thistle, he gazed over her shoulder, but she noticed his shadow and turned around. "No peeking at my character!"

"I did not", Orrig answered his expression no indicator if that had been the truth or not.

 

A little while later Orrig returned with a jug full of fresh water and seemed to exactly meet the point where Ford started the next scene.

"This is the police station", the game-master explained, laying out a new map.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find it always interesting how certain details in stories tend to emerge on their own. Technologically the world they play in is a lot like ours, but a few years in the future.
> 
> As last time, I appreciate constructive criticism very much, English is not my mother tongue.


End file.
